NY History List:

I am not sure of the location of the geographic center of  New York State. I do remember though an effort I once undertook to determine the geographic center of  New York City came up with several alternatives, depending on how much of  New York Bay and the territorial waters were included in the calculation.  I would suspect that there might be a similar complexity in determining the geographic center of  the state, depending on how the relevant bodies of water are treated.

Peter Eisenstadt
[log in to unmask] 02/12/02 09:34 AM >>>
Susan:

Long time no write to!

The geogaphical center has been marked on some maps to be generally in the
vicinity of Pratt's Hollow, as you said.  A 1965 Madison County Highway Map
shows the Geographical Center of New York to be just a bit east of the
Pratts Hollow corners, about 3 miles northeast of Morrisville, in the
northeast part of the Town of Eaton, Madison County.  I believe there used
to be or is a marker at the spot, set by the late Erl Bates.

When MapQuest, one of the on-line map companies, was started up a few years
ago they had a number of strange towns that no one had ever heard of
(Kingsburg, Ninthtown, Matincock, North Castle) that ended up being plotted
in a nearby section of the same Town of Eaton.  This spot, on the east end
of Stone Bridge / Callaghan Road and Old County Road about a mile northwest
of Morrisville, may be the correct spot of the Geographic Center, as
figured by computer.  (it is just as likely not, too)

I figure that they entered the names of these mythical places into a data
base of the state, of which the extremes of the state were known, and then
the unknown sites defaulted to the center of the state.

I wrote several messages to them a few years ago and they promised that
they would fix the errors, but as you will see in the following link (www.
mapquest. com, search on Matincock, NY) that they never changed a thing and
it still shows up on the end of Stone Bridge / Callaghan Road.

http://www.MapQuest.com/maps/map.adp?zoom=6&mapdata=%2bDurgsgaQPs1Jzyfx2TE67Y1XZGiYJW1yWlkghCVcStHMvOSEJVrNXhStQcembqT00bK85caNxjLRjpim%2faj0Ca%2fKPpVnizbvSuFc%2bQ9SVXNK%2bQoeg7R%2bhQfZHGk4%2bywRwEkWPENsZns9npJvpuPeaN4oUzx122eDe2EvadM6E68S4Jrs7KYf3UyOAX7EzlTPJ%2fPYvyKNNfo2V2g3pB2Oms0SVBia7vSd2gMaf3aeR%2bY0eGpR5NOfYpt9a8bN1sV%2bh8FB21CVZE%3d

In surfing the web for "Geographical Center of New York" I found that
places as far as Utica, Syracuse, Ithaca, and even Geneva claimed to be
"near" the Georgraphical Center.

Perhaps someone with better technology than that of the early 20th century
,or maybe even before that, could more precisely give a location.  It would
be interesting to know.

A funny thing, though, the 1965 Madison County Map shows that this spot
chosen by MapQuest is not far from the Georgraphical Center of Madison County!

         Dan W.
         (my computer is back to life and I only lost a few of my files!!!!!!)







At 01:23 PM 2/11/02 -0500, you wrote:
>Pratts Hollow, here in Madison County, has always
>taken great pride in being the geographical center
>of N.Y.S.  I am looking for the *exact* location.
>One old-timer told me he thought there was a marker
>or post denoting the spot, but nobody can seem
>to remember where it is.  Anyone have any ideas?
>Sue Greenhagen, Technical Services Librarian
>  Webmaster, "N.Y.S. & the Civil War"
>SUNY Morrisville College Library
>Morrisville, NY  13408
>(315) 684-6055     [log in to unmask]
>============================================